Richard II
Richard Plantaganent was the king of England from 1377 – 1399, at which point he was deposed, imprisoned, and eventually starved to death by his first-cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, who would assume the throne as Henry IV.
But such can be found in any standard history of England. I much prefer the man himself, not his deeds as king for as all will concur, he was a poor king in most respects. My Richard is more like Shakespeare’s: tragic and sad, lonely and yet inundated with friends. And as any historian of Richard’s life knows, his life is closer to Shakespeare’s interpretation than most realize.
For a graduate Shakespeare seminar, I wrote a paper on Shakespeare's play, Richard II, which required me to know all about the actual person's life inside and out. What I found was that his life was so intriguing and full of woe that once the paper was done, I continued my reading to the point that I can now say that I know him as well as any of his biographers.
After that semester, I went to England for the first time on a group tour, and we visited Westminster Abbey: the Cooperstown of England’s royalty. And there, I beheld Richard’s tomb in which he rests with his first wife and only real love, Ann of Bohemia, their golden effigies crowing the monument like cherubim, their hands between them touching ever so lightly, lovingly. When I returned, I wrote a series of poems about Richard, which I occasionally read from at poetry readings for our department, along with my novel in progress.
Everyone likes the novel, but few care about the poems.
Richard is the typical self-indulged king who exploits his subjects and defies conventions not because he can but because he suffers from too much affection, too much sentiment as the early moderns would say. He is like Caligula in this respect: another misunderstood Caesar who never wanted to be the king in the first place but who had to make due as best as he could, while all conspired around him. Both were raised as lovers of the arts, not war, as thinkers, not doers. And both were thrust into the leadership role when their much beloved fathers died before they were actually crowned king.
And both committed horrible acts against their subjects, which no one can excuse.
As such, we have a king in Richard II who truly loves his (first) wife and dotes over her every move (a rarity at the time), but who sadistically tortures those who disdain her. We have a man who loves the idea of being king, but who has no idea what being a king actually means. We have a tragic figure who by most rights, deserves his fate, but who holds a special place in the hearts of those around him, even when they kill him.